


Nature As Idealized By An Artist At Large

by willowthorn



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Other, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2020-11-08 01:21:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20827022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowthorn/pseuds/willowthorn
Summary: Grand Magnificent was once an artist, a prodigy. Now he's a trucker with an unfortunate crush on the mysterious, rude, beautiful server at a diner on the edge of town. And maybe their boss. And maybe that person that took the beautiful photos lining the diner's walls, but he'll decide that once he's met him.





	1. Chapter 1

Growth hurts. 

It’s little sparks, the burn of a solder across his hand instead of the metal before him. It’s the slip of a dremel head across his fingers as he rushes a late night project, too much coffee and too little medication. There’s a raised scar shaped like an arrow on the fold of his knuckle. It could have been worse. There’s the slip of a chisel and a line of red on his wrist that makes him dizzy. He tries different mediums. 

He likes working with clay. He slips his fingers into moisture, finds resistance, and works with it. It’s gentle, practiced, and when the base has been formed and fired, the scratch of tools against the surface is relaxing. He tries something more. 

Fabric arts aren’t his forte. They’re too soft, too yielding. They’re beautiful, he has seen beautiful work, but he gets frustrated as the needles don’t yield the texture he wants. His wrists sting. Growth hurts, he reminds himself. He digs a brace out of his pack and takes the week to go to galleries, to piss away money to chase inspiration. He’s just a vessel for the work, he reminds himself. There’s nothing within him that he can draw from, nothing real anyway. Everyone says so. If that many people believe it, it must be true. He drinks a liquid breakfast and meditates on the texture. He throws himself back into it, and lets it become compulsion. 

He knows he’s good. He’s spent too much time and money not to be good. His parents fade away into the background of his life, too far away to make a difference other than the occasional phone call and money dropped into his account when it gets too low. It let’s them feel good, he reasons, and he wishes they were closer (does he?). He resents them, it’s just as well. He can see the disappointment in their eyes. An artist. All that trouble, and they wound up with an artist. At least they still have his sister. She’s still too young to feel the full brunt of her independence.  
College is a blur. He drinks a lot, some of it good, a lot of it not. He does small shows, then larger ones, and then it’s over. He’s out there. He doesn’t know what to do. He has mountains of supplies and no deadline to work for. He makes jewelry. He makes sculpture. He takes up smoking. The money stops.

His online shop gets some traction, yeah, but Grand is an artist, not a marketer. He thinks some of the things he puts up there are right crap, but they sell, they pay his rent (barely), and if they break after wearing for a few months he says it was a mishandling, but he can repair it no problem. They just have to pay for shipping. 

He stops seeing it as art. It’s just something he can throw together and get money while he works on something better. It stops being fun, and he starts getting short on cash. He starts skipping meals. He buys cheaper smokes. He gets invited to shows, but he can’t pay the entry fee. He stubbornly clings to the notion that this will build character, that pain is art and art is pain. He produces some of his best work floating free after too little food and too much wandering, waiting for something to strike him. It’s not reliable. He needs something reliable. He’s better than this. He’s more than this. He misses the taste of expensive fusion cuisine, misses the taste of food eaten under vaulted ceilings, rooms full of light and wood with abstract art hanging on the walls. He misses the feel of having jeans that fit correctly. His clothes are getting too big. He can’t live like this. 

The city is alive and bustling around him. He looks at commuters, studies them. They move away from him. He bites his tongue and looks at job listings on his now broken phone. He’s not having fun. This builds character. He can’t live like this. He must live like this. He can’t ask anyone for help, it would spoil his integrity. He takes an unskilled laborer job, and he hates it. It’s mindless, and he is restless. He didn’t choose this (didn’t he?), he had no choice. He goes home sore and tired, but he can eat again, he can smoke again. He fills his lungs with luxury and waits for his next shift. There’s no time to get really into a flow, he tells himself. There’s no time to really produce anything. If he makes anything during this time, it’s sketches and small things that overflowed from him when he was too tired to stop himself, save his energy for work.  
He’s a hard worker. He’s always been a hard worker, he tells himself. He learns to keep his head down, his opinions down. He doesn’t tell the foreman where his bruises come from. He doesn’t let himself hurt. He has to do this. Growth is pain, and he is growing away from a life that didn’t fit him anymore. Once those shoving hands become playful, those insults turn into nicknames, he knows he’s ok. He gets promoted, told the guys really like having him around. He’s rarely home anymore, and when he is, he tries not to stare at the half-completed projects and supplies piled in a corner of his small apartment. It’s not worth looking back. He has everything he needs now. He has friends. He never had friends before. 

The art projects stop. His store is all but empty, and he has no plans on putting anything more up. He just deletes whatever comes his way. It’s not his business anymore. He doesn’t even bothering putting up a notice. They’ll get the hint, he figures. 

He becomes a full fledged trucker and is fucked against a broken sink by a stranger, sweating, drunk, and stinking. They both pretend it never happened. In quiet he wishes it had been slower, that his hand had found his where it smacked against the mirror. He wishes that they weren’t drunk, that his words were tender instead of slurred. He wishes that the man with the hairy chest and stained jeans wasn’t his first.

He wishes for a lot of things. He thinks about none of them.

He proves he’s worth his weight. He pulls long nights, his relief driver hardly getting to see the road even on long hauls. He gets familiar with different road side stops and the people he crosses there. He gets used to sleeping curled up in his truck listening to radio chatter when the roads get too quiet. He thinks about shelling out for something to paint his truck with. It would be his design, of course. It would be something that could set him apart, something pretty. More than pretty. He decides against it. He has better things to spend his money on, he tells himself.   
There are peaceful times. There are times that make him think he loves this life. He loves the look of sunrise breaking over mountains on a fall day, the air cold enough to frost. He loves the freedom of singing alone in his truck, he loves the look of city lights after hours of nothing. He likes stopping to pee in corn fields and waving at cows. He gets to talk shit over bitter coffee and scrambled eggs with other guys, and it only gets awkward sometimes. He has friends now, he tells himself. That’s the best part of it. He knows what he’s doing, and he knows who he can rely on in a pinch. 

The diner he meets his friends at this time is different than usual, a place on the other side of town from his usual stop. That’s fine, it’s good to get out and explore. It’s kinda nice, actually. The booths are low and green, and it could be an old movie set if it wasn’t for the small rainbow flag on the bottom right of the front door, the plants growing from hanging pots both inside and out. The guys don’t seem to notice, so he’s sure it’ll be fine. 

Their server is.. not charming. It would ruin his mood, how rough and quiet they were, nothing like the boisterous girls with bright red lips and voices like smoke he’s used to seeing in old diners like this, but their long blue-black hair is swept up in the most interesting way. It’s messy, it’s a complex mesh of natural lines twisted around and around, sticking up and sticking out. It reminds him of thistles in winter, half made nests, the flick of a stiff bristled brush. This better not awaken anything in me, he thinks as the guys make their orders. He doesn’t pay attention to what they say as the server leaves. It’s not important. He pulls his vape out, absently pulling on it. He didn’t see any signage, and besides, the guys knew he liked to smoke over coffee. It felt romantic, it felt right. 

What is important is that he’s choked midway through his first pull by his server yanking his rig right out of his hand, all but slamming the thing against the table. “No smoking.” They growl before setting down the two plates still somehow balanced perfectly in their opposing arm. The guys, to their credit, have the decency to only look amused as he straightens himself, all indignity and lack of coffee. 

“Excuse me, that is a _vape_.” His voice is thick, haze of smoke still curling from his lips. “And I did not see any signage about _vapes_.”

“Oh, excuse me, sir. Let me fix that for you.” Their voice drips with ire as they scrape their pen across their notepad. They move in two quick steps to slap the slip of paper against the pre-existing no smoking sign hidden right behind the front door. 

“I hardly think that’s legally binding.” Grand grumbles despite the laughter of his friends. Some friends they were.

“Hey Even!” the server calls suddenly, startling a few of the guys with the sudden sheer volume of their voice. “Made an addition to a sign. The guy insisted.” They move easily to the window of the kitchen, as if they hadn’t nearly shattered the eardrums of everyone present. Grand rubs at his ear as his friend reaches across to pat Rob on the shoulder, soothing his lung full of coffee.  
He was about to retort with something smart when he noticed a man coming around the corner, wiping his hands on a cloth tucked into the tie of his apron. He was tall, bare arms muscular, with locs looped into a bunch at the back of his head. His presence in the room caused a shift immediately – the lounging truckers found themselves sitting up straighter, Grand’s hands twitching as he began to pick up on details. Even had a firm, calculating gaze and clear grey eyes. He had a partial prosthetic on his hand, dark and well maintained despite obvious heavy use. He stood confidently, and when he crossed his arms there was a faded airforce tattoo on his upper right arm. Grand had to remember to breathe. He was incredibly good looking, and Grand was in that moment reminded that yes, he still had a thing for people with authority. 

Really, it was unfair. 

“Looks good, Echo.” Despite the cool authority in his gaze, Events voice was kind, his hand on Echols shoulder friendly, familiar. 

“How’s breakfast, guys?” He turns, addressing the table. Grand can’t look up suddenly, his hands twisting in his lap. “Good, sir.” The table choruses, Grand with them. 

“That’s what I like to hear.” Even nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Oh, and Echo?”  
“Yeah?”

“Get the one in front some water. He’s redder than my tomatoes.” Grand groaned, burying his burning face in his hands. The others hooted, laughing louder as he told them to fuck off.  
“Awh c’mon, Maggie. There’s no shame in wanting a guy like that to wet your dry.”

“You all suck.” He wants to dissolve into the floor, the large pitcher and single glass placed in front of him by Echo doing nothing to help matters. “I’m never going anywhere with any of you ever again.”

And for three weeks, he doesn’t. He barely sees another person, his assignments taking him cross country. It’s a good haul, just him and a shipment of something expensive he doesn’t care about packed away in a ridiculous amount of packing peanuts. He finds his mind wandering more often than usual, little images crossing him on those long, straight roads. He remembers the lines of Echo’s hair, the way they smiled as if they were in on the joke as they set down the jug of water, the honest surprise that flickered across their face when they found he still tipped them well despite their teasing. He remembers their strength and balance, the way they moved as smooth as water. Of course, he thinks about Even too, wondering a bit too much at the story there. There weren’t many places like that, owned by a man like him. He wonders who takes care of the plants. He wonders who took the photos on the walls. He hadn’t looked too closely, too embarrassed to linger after he paid his share, but the colours were striking, the compositions promising. He wasn’t much for landscapes, but he knew a good eye when he saw it. 

He returns to the city on an hour of sleep, a full five hours before the actual deadline. It’s automatic for him to seek out a diner, seek out a cup of coffee and a warm meal before crawling back to his apartment. He meant to go to his usual place, meant to go to the place where he didn’t even have to glance at a menu to know what he wanted, no matter how tired he felt. He finds himself staring at the door of Even’s diner, wondering at what point his feet had decided to betray him. He almost jumps out of his skin as he hears the door chime, Echo eyeing him the same way he would eye stray dogs. 

“It’s pretty rude to just stand at the door like that. You’re freaking people out.” From inside he can hear the bubble of voices, the slight scrape of cutlery. It smells great, and he just keeps on looking down at Echo, trying to see if their hair had changed its shape in the low light. 

“…Seriously, do you want to come in or not?” Echo leans against the open door, and it was easy to nod and follow them in, sitting down in a small both in the far corner, his only company an abundant tropical plant with large leaves he never learned the name of. “You’re a trucker, right? Did you just get back?”

“Yeah, it was a long one.” He sighs, settling into the cushioned seat fully. Maybe he could just doze until his order came out. Just.. just for five minutes. It wouldn’t be a big deal. 

“So a coffee?” Echo scratches it down quickly the second Grand nods. 

“Yeah, just keep them coming. I’ll order food with the second one, I just..” He gestures, eyes closed. 

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” 

He blinks, and his coffee is sitting just beyond his hand, warm and welcoming. He clutches it like a lifeline, wincing slightly as it burns his mouth. It’s easier to think after that, an overflowing omelette making its way over to his table along with his second coffee. Echo catches him staring intently at the photos hanging above his seat, looking like nothing more existed than him, his coffee, and the photograph. 

“We took that one last year. There was this log we rested on that had been hollowed out that had these great grey-blue mushrooms in it. There was a storm rolling in, and Gig couldn’t get the lighting right before we had to move. He didn’t stop moping about it for days.” Grand nods, imagining the heavy, warm scent of rot and new life in the rain, the shine of weak light on pale mushrooms. He does not ask who Gig is, he does not ask where the rolling valley in the photo is.  
He comes more frequently after that. Echo catches him wandering between photos when it isn’t busy, when he doesn’t have people with him. He treats it like a gallery, humming in appreciation, standing on his toes to stay eye level with some of the frames that Even hung higher. Partially out of boredom, partially out of a desire for him to just sit still and finish his food already, Echo starts filling in little details, giving answers to questions Grand did not ask. All the photos had been taken in a five year period, mostly by Gig but occasionally by Echo, Even, or someone named Cascabel that Grand never actually sees until months later. 

Summer trembles overhead when he meets Even’s husband. It’s a late night after a late run, and he doesn’t even look up while ordering, focusing instead on scratching out one of the valleys he had seen hanging on the wall, his small notebook tattered with age and the natural consequences of being shoved in a bag without too much care. “So you’re Grand, huh?” 

Cascabel’s voice is smooth and deep, reminding him of espresso chocolates where Echo’s has the force and charm of a black river unbroken by stone. He jolts where he sits, pencil dragging an unwelcome line. 

“You’re not Echo.” He says, because he can think of nothing else.

“Nope. They’re off scouting, so you’ll be seeing a lot more of me and a lot less of them.” He clamps down on the uncomfortable, itching longing that bubbles up at the thought of not seeing them for who knows how long. Cascabel watches him for a moment before leaving, having come to some conclusion. Grand gets a extra sausage link on his plate when it arrives, and a pat on the shoulder before he leaves.

His sketchbook starts filling with bird nests and dark rivers, studies of athletic bodies. He doesn’t ask for Echo’s schedule, but he starts to set his own – no more super long hauls, no more weeks spent mainly on the road. He starts to linger in the city between jobs, starts to gaze out onto the line of trees that he knew eventually joined up with the rest of the cross-country trail.  
Cascabel is kind, patient, and far too observant. He’s a good match for Even. The two of them offer their walls to some of Grand’s more complete sketches when they catch him at it. He thinks about it, but declines. He’s not an artist anymore, and the more traditional mediums of ink, paper, and paint were never where he truly shone. If he made them something, it would have to be clay and glass and metal. Warm terracotta, humble and beautiful would go well here, he thinks. Glittering glass to catch the colours around them. Stainless steel, cool and smooth and all graceful lines. The more he thinks, the more the metal stretches into a blade, stretches into Echo. He keeps his sculpture plans in a different sketchbook, and he’s thankful for that. He goes back to sketching things inspired by the photos on their walls, but it doesn’t satisfy him the way it used to. 

It’s nearly a month later when Echo comes back in the heat of a Monday afternoon, the thump of their pack on the floor announcing their arrival. There’s the grime of a long hike staining their cheeks, obscuring the bit of sunburn that had settled on their nose. They’re smiling. Grand can’t remember ever seeing them smile like that, the slightest lines marking their cheeks, their eyes. Cascabel greets them with a hug, and Grand tries not to pay attention to what they’re saying. The trail is beautiful, the path clear. There’s a river that’s still a bit flooded, but should be back to its usual levels by the time they hit it. The rangers are saying it’s a good year for bears, but besides the occasional spotting there hasn’t been much cause for alarm. 

He frowns down at the sketch in front of him, trying to decide what line to place next. It doesn’t look right all of a sudden, too flat, too perfect. He flips the page, tries to center himself in the contours of a bird abstracted as it flew from the branches of a pine. That’s wrong too. He’s three pages deep into aborted sketches before he notices that the conversation is no longer happening. He’s nearly done a sketch of some towering, refracted thing that’s almost human, almost not when he’s startled by the scrape of a chair across from him.

“You’ve been drawing a lot more, huh?” They're not sitting down, hair trailing loose as they look at his sketch. The sunburn is still there, the dirt is not. Grand can see a few hair on their chin, a freckle on their neck. 

“This is a good space for it, that’s all.” And it is, the light soft and clear, the gentle sounds of the few other patrons relaxing as it floats between ferns and fronds.

“Can I see what else you've been working on?” And Echo is looking down at him, glowing and beautiful, with sweat stains on their shirt. They smell like bug spray and soap and dirt, and Grand is leaning back to let them take his notebook without a second thought.

“Sure.” 

He tries not to watch as Echo tucks their hair behind their ear, flipping slowly through the pages. They hum at the harsh, angular lines of a figure abstracted. They linger of a study of engine parts, squinting at the scribbles of notes beside them. "It's just a hobby thing." Grand says by way of explanation, something jolting inside him as Echo glances at him, curious before they flip the page. It's his only inked sketch, small drops of colour bringing dimension to an image of grey-blue mushrooms nestled in the hollow of a log. 

"You got the mushrooms right, but the tree should be a little thicker in order to meet their growing conditions. If you have some time free, I could show you the patch - it'd be a bit of back tracking, but if we went a few days early, it'd give us time to check it out before meeting up with Gig." They say it so easily, like it was the same as walking to the corner store. A few days. 

"I… I don't have after tent?" He's never been camping before. Not really. Not with the kind of gear Echo had strapped to their large backpack. 

"You could borrow one of my older ones, if you want." 

"Ok." Wait, did he even have time off?

"Great, then we can leave in two weeks." They look happy. His insides twist.

"Sure."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trip begins

The uneven pavement rocks his car as he pulls away from his apartment, gravel crunching under his tires. The pale morning light warms him, the cool air running through him. He drives with the windows down, a full pack of cigarettes resting unlit and undisturbed in the cup holder beside him. 

It's been two weeks, the list Echo handed him tucked carefully in his pocket. 

The diner isn't easy to capture in a selfie, but he snaps a quick picture of himself in front of it, his pack over his shoulder and sends it to his sister. She tells him he looks like a tool. She tells him to be safe. She tells him to send her a picture of Echo. He folds his sunglasses into the v of his shirt and tells himself he does not look like a tool. 

Echo is waiting for him, a cup of coffee hiding between their fingers as they chat with Cascabel. A steaming mug rests across from them, untouched, and Grand wonders if there's a third joining them already. Cascabel waves him over, Echo rising to meet him halfway. They tuck their bags together. Grand's is too bright, too new compared to Echo's. He pauses at the small patch of an eagle, full of movement, it's head tilted just slightly away. "That was practice for a jacket. There was a hole there anyway, so I figured, hey, might as well." 

"Wait, you made that?" He follows them, Echo nodding at the coffee before him as they pick up their own cup. He hesitates for a moment before muttering his thanks, drinking deeply. Alright, no third person. Not yet. Echo had just gotten his coffee for him. It wasn’t too weird, Echo took his order all the time. It was just them being nice. 

"Yeah. I mean, I like doing needlework." They dip their head just slightly, a quiet smile on their lips. 

"It's great! I never could get a real sense of.. of gravity when I was trying to learn." He gestures as he talks, running through failed designs and pricked fingers. 

"I could teach you? There are different ways to lay the stitches that really help bring dimension to a piece." 

"No, no. I'd rather just commission you. Textiles were never my thing, really." 

"More of a pen-and-paper artist, huh?"

"Mmn… not exactly. I could, but I really like multi-media sculpture. You know, clay, glass, metal, stone. Other crap." 

"Huh, didn't peg you as the type that liked getting their hands dirty." Cascabel leans between them, plates piled on his arm. Pancakes for Echo, a few strips of bacon on the side. An omelette for Grand, with rye toast and jam on a smaller plate off to the side. More coffee for them both. Echo digs in without ceremony, blueberries spreading dark stains as they cut through them. 

"It's not dirty." He unrolls his cutlery, the weight of eyes on him making him remember scrubbing the clay from under his fingers, the sweat stinging his eyes as he pushed the forge hotter, worked the metal smoother. "Ok, it's kind of sweaty, but it's not like I'm- it's not like I was walking around with a bunch of crap on my clothes." 

Never mind the time he woke up with plaster in his hair. That was during finals, it was different. And never mind that he deliberately kept a different shirt on him so he could change before walking back to the dorm. That was normal. 

"Well if you're fine getting sweaty, I'm sure you'll do fine keeping up with Echo." Grand inhales coffee as Echo makes solid eye contact with their pancakes. 

"Ah, he'll be fine. We're starting in a pretty easy area." Echo leans to the side, pulling out a worn topographical map. Grand can see splotches on ink on it, bits of tape turned yellow with age. A turn of the wrist and Echo has it on the table between them, Cascabel crouching down to have a proper look at the section Echo is pointing all. 

"Oh yeah, that's not bad. The trail is pretty well maintained there. You might even run into a few other people on the way." 

"Yeah, there's a lodge about two… three days from there. We can check in once we hit it." 

They run through the map together, Echo's hand lingering over streams, over lakes. They moved their fingers away from the chartered path, saying that this place was good to forage in, this other place had been too picked over already. Grand is only half listening. Echo is all strong, sure lines, but their nails are uneven, pale scars and the fading ghosts of scrapes on their palms, their fingers. There are muscles there that are far more pronounced than in Grand's own hands. They probably have a really strong grip, he thinks to himself. He thinks about their hand closed around his… around someone's hand, someone's wrist. He bets it would feel nice. Warm. Comfortable. 

It’s all he can think about as he backs out onto the open road, Echo in the seat beside him. The grip of his steering wheel under his hands reminds him. Cascabel waves from the rapidly disappearing distance, Even’s arm around his shoulder. He dwells on their shared silhouette, how they leaned together. How their fingers had looped together so casually. He thinks about Echo’s hands. 

The trip isn’t too long, as far as things go - there was an entrance to the trail about 45 minutes north that they could park at. Echo directs him easily, otherwise content to hum along to the radio. He keeps his eyes on the road. He does not watch how the morning light brings a glow to Echo's skin, does not linger on how their mouth gently shapes the words floating through the air when they tell him to turn at this corner up here, that he'll be looking for a gas station on the left before their next turn. He wants to keep watching them. He watches the road. 

They breathe deeply, together, as they finally arrive. Echo stretches, shirt riding up to expose the long line of their toned stomach. The air is fresh and green, not yet made stale by the heat of the afternoon. Gravel crunches under his feet, and it feels wrong to take a pull from his vape, but he knows it will feel worse to bring it into the woods. His cigarettes are tucked into his jacket pocket next to his lighter. He weighs the rig in his hands before tucking it away, hidden under the seat. It'll be fine. He can go analog for a week. 

Echo calls him over once he’s done, the map unfolded on the hood of his car. “Ok, so we’re here.” Echo points with a pen, tapping on a dot with two dates underneath before dragging it along the path towards some relatively untouched part of the map, the words ‘Do not swim in spring’ written over a section of river just north of where they were. This time he pays attention to Echo’s words, not just the shape of them.

“We’ll be meeting Gig here. If we show up early, we can just hang around - there’s plenty to see there.” Echo draws a small triangle over the meeting spot, an easy way for Grand to spot just how much land they needed to cover. It was… not insignificant. 

“If we break it up so we’re doing about two and a half, maybe three hour walks between meals we should make good time. We should hit the place with the mushrooms sometime in the late afternoon today, so the lighting should still be good.” 

"Ok." He could do this. He feels the weight of his camera in his other pocket, spare batteries waiting in his pack. He looks to the line of the trees, watches Echo's fingers as they press against the pale side of a dead elm waiting at the border. 

"Coming?" They ask, and he follows. 

The earth under him is soft, the brush of fallen leaves and shed needles keeping the trail dry. The air is cooler in the shadow of the trees, Echo walking forward as Grand lingers, hand on the weight of his camera. Lichen blotches trees, bark peeling in the filtered light. He thinks on composition, lets his feet follow Echo’s shadow. He thinks of depth and coloured lenses, how Gig would frame this shot or that. If he was a little bit taller, he could get a decent down angle…. If his camera could telescope then the cross of those trees over there would be good…. He looks at the curves of the ground, the splash of ferns or bright red of some berry he did not know poking through greens and browns and yellows. 

But Echo is moving quicker, and he has the smell of the forest pressing in against him, rich with just a hint of wet stone in the distance. The lines of the forest begin to blur together, a mossy log or tumble of stone breaking through a decently level plane. He begins to watch the bounce of Echo’s ponytail. He begins to watch his feet. The ground below them breaks with smoothed rocks worn down by many shoes, roots scuffed clean of their bark. The smell of water is growing stronger, their path dipping. 

Echo’s pace slows, their steps getting smaller as they move down the hill. It’s only a matter of seconds before they’re level with Grand, shifting the straps of their pack. 

“I think you’ll really like this. It’s a bit slippery but it’s worth it.” He likes the line of their shoulders here. In their element, their lines are softer, more fluid somehow. Not any less ready for motion, but… different in a way that Grand remembers seeing in the way his sister, his friends moved sometimes. Calm, confident, at home under the branches reaching out to their partners across the river. 

When he crouches in the mud to take a picture,light shines over Echo’s strong shoulders. It’s something he would normally delete, their ponytail blurred just enough to annoy him, their stance awkward as they turn back towards him, a word -his name- pulling at their lips. 

He sinks down lower, Echo smiling as he wobbles slightly, tongue between his lips as he tries to translate a sense of scale into two dimensions.

Years later, he remembers how that moment felt as a photo falls to the floor from an old sketchbook, pages stained with coffee and the kind of grit left over from being tossed in a bag with a bunch of dirt. How big the riverbed felt, how tangled and vivid the roots lining it were as he walked past them, some snarls level with his head. How Echo reached out their hand to help him across the looser shale when he hesitated, not trusting the shifting of his camera but not willing to put it in a more secure location in case he missed a single shot. 

The river turns, Echo staying a few steps ahead to make sure the ground was still solid, that Grand could see where they stepped. They hop easily across the muddy banks, their voice echoing over the babble of water. They point out hanging branches, stacked stones, and crevices that threatened to look like doorways.

“I used to hike here with my brother- he was sure that something would open up the rock face at night and follow our steps, so he always walked in the river instead of on the banks.” Echo lingers with some fondness, Grand itching to ask them to pose against the wall. The small patch of wild grass clinging to life beside their foot would complete it, if he moved it, replanted it by the doorway. Maybe some of those red mystery berries. Maybe oak leaves crossed to create a plate, invite in the thought that something lived just beyond the shadows of the cave. The warmth of their skin would contrast beautifully with the cool tones of the stone. 

He listens to stories of their grandmother while crouching to get the light on the stream as it breaks, he listens to stories of their brother trembling, eyes wide as their grandmother pulls out visions from her past, accounts of people lost and people found, of the woods and the deer and the sky above. Of Schools. Of love. Of what made berries red and Ballad’s eyes brown. 

He shares his own stories, of twisted wire hung around his mother’s wrist, how he used to watch her fold clay into elaborate shapes, how he would watch his father use them like dolls to entertain his sister. How she grew up proud and vocal even though he remembers her crying the first time she broke one of the small, delicate animals that were usually set aside for clients. How he helped her fix it. How his father spent hours teaching him how to draw the hero of his favourite book, and guided him to make that figure look like Grand, not like the person on the cover. How his father hung that picture up in his office when Grand decided it was not worth keeping. 

They stop at a basin of rushing water, the river tumbling down a slope of damp rock, jagged edges worn away just enough to not cut if pressed against. Grand breathes it in, letting his hand dip in the cool water collecting in a secondary pool, rock rubbed smooth before evening out to join the twisting stream. 

“How are you with climbing?” Echo asks, already stretching. 

“Do I have a choice?” He stands, adjusting his pack while he looks over the rock wall. It’s maybe twice as tall as he is, the odd angles refusing to form a coherent path. At least it looked decently stable, if he ignored the crumble of rock under his feet, ignored the damp spray of water. Echo had climbed it before, obviously, so he could as well. It was only twice as tall as him. That’s nothing. 

“Not really.” There was another way, a long way full of rotted logs and muddy ground. Between the two this was the cleaner way, the least likely to end with Grand’s camera shattered or lost.

“Great…” Grand sighs, tucking his camera back into his pack. He makes sure his smokes are secure, his lighter in his breast pocket. Well if he’s going to slip and fall to a horrible (pathetic) death at least he…at least he wore clean underwear today. That counted for something.

“It’ll be fine, I’ll spot you.” Echo sits back on their haunches as Grand stretches his knees, his wrists. They watch him swallow his hesitation, carefully picking out footholds and handholds. 

In the end it’s his lack of momentum that makes him slide, heart in his throat, and it’s Echo’s hand against his pack that sets him straight, his feet back on the ground. “There, see? It’s not too high. Take off your backpack and you should be fine - I’ll pass it up to you after.”

“Oh…. right, ok.” He sets it against the wall, well out of the way. He keeps his eyes away from Echo’s, pretends he can’t feel the heat of embarrassment on his neck.

It really is much easier to climb after that, even if he still slipped a bit, even if he did have to wiggle up and have to listen to a half-hearted cheer from Echo as he finally (finally) was able to hoist himself over the edge. The grit on the knees of his pants was almost worth the view, the river twisting through vaulted stone, lone trees hanging from the curving edge, sparse grasses growing sideways. The blanched stump of a tree twists out from stone steps, moss taking shelter where the water breaks around wood and slate sticking out in stubborn scales. Another hiker had stacked stones, marking their way against the bank where the rivers did not stray until the spring deluge made the waters swollen and strong. 

He walks through the shallow waters, craning his neck to catch the curve of trees threatening to fall. Crouching to watch the movement of moss through the ripples of water. Hoping that the wasp that landed on one of the slate outcroppings didn’t decide that he looked enough like something to warrant an up-close investigation. He hears the thump of his bag, the reverb of Echo’s voice. “Yeah, be right there!” He calls, hopping from bank to bank, feeling the give of gravel under his foot. 

He kneels at the edge, watching their fingers grip at the cold stone, watching the grit colour their fingertips, and he reaches out. “Want a hand?”

“Sure.” He can hear them smile.

Their hands are warm, and rough, and solid as they close around his palm.


	3. Chapter 3

They break for lunch nestled in the stone valley, smoke curling up into the open sky above. Grand eats lightly, mostly nuts and a few strips of jerky. Echo has a small stain of jelly on the corner of their lips, a curve in their smile as they watch him smoke. The taste of nicotine is fresh and dry, a pleasant opening of his lungs and a release of tension along his back.

“So, worth it?” They ask him, their arms wrapped around their legs, their head resting on their arms. Grand leans back, watches a tree clinging to the cliffside. The feeling of eyes on him doesn’t change, but he’s not such a stranger to that. He had his time being watched at galleries, little whispers and glances following him as he shook hands with another person he didn’t really care about. 

It feels different. 

He shifts, humming out smoke. He can feel it burn in the back of his nose, warm and familiar. “Honestly? Lot less bugs than I expected.”

“That’s cause we’re walking with the river - they should be out by the time we’re ready to make camp.” Echo themselves already smelled of bug spray, an almost sweet scent that Grand caught in the car before Echo opted to roll the window down. “It’s mostly mosquitoes this time of year, not many horse-flies, but you’ll want to tuck your pants into your socks once we’re back in the bush since we’ll be going off trail again. I don’t want to strip you down to check for ticks until we get to the cabin at least.” 

“You don’t have to do that, I can check myself. Besides, there’s poison ivy here, I’d have to be a special kind of idiot to get a rash on the first day.” They laugh as he feels himself blush. They’re just teasing, testing to see what he does, and does not know. Well, he’s done his research. He knows what to look for. He does. And he’s not going to be distracted by a cool flower or anything of the sort and wander right into… Something. A tick nest. 

The time they spend in the riverbed after lunch is short - there’s the distant rush of a waterfall, the air cool where it presses into his warm skin. They begin to climb, first over small steps, then fallen logs braced against each other. He can feel the smaller branches bend under his weight, despite his cautious movements. They do not crack, they do not break, but each motion is hesitant, not trusting the small things to take the true brunt of his weight. He looks for signs of damp rot, kicking lightly to see if he can tell if they’ve already been hollowed out (he can’t, the moss absorbing the force of his testing kicks). He holds his camera tightly next to his heart, yelping as his shoe sinks into a pile of leaves as he finally bites the bullet and hauls himself fully over the logs.

“You ok?” Echo calls back to him, waiting on a small outcropping of damp rock no wider than Grand’s outstretched hand. 

“I’m good! Just got some water in my shoe.” He pulls himself out slowly, taking a deep breath as he tries to spot the places Echo has stepped.

“Go for the rock to your left, then there are some roots that you can use as handles once you jump to the wall. There’s no snakes here, so just make sure you’re grabbing a thick one.” 

“Great….” He sighs, shuffling slightly before giving his best hop. “Beautiful place and I can’t even take a picture cause I’d have to stand in the river to get a good angle… Probably gonna get trench foot or a parasite trying to get a blurry picture of a bird….” The roots are gritty under his hand, but they hold firm, even if he has to lean slightly further than Echo as he walks along the wall to accommodate for his size.

He breathes once he’s on solid ground again, takes a look back to see where the slate had cracked, how the fall of trees impacted the twisting of the river bed, how that in turn impacted the breaking of shale, how the roots he had grabbed have fewer off-shoots now, less grit clinging to them. Small marks, small impacts of his path in a still untouched surrounding.

He wants to look closer. He wants to mark each part of the forest, the waves and echoes of human life unseen. He thinks of sculpture. He thinks of white marble, idealized forms, and watercolor trays covered in dirt, in dust, in the stones and plants the pigments used to be rendered from. He thinks of soaring gallery ceilings, propped up with rotting logs. 

“The trail is up there.” Echo points from their place in the valley, the steep incline of the slope sending some trees growing almost sideways, their roots a tangled, vein-like mess when the ground cover slips. He can see the flat of the ridge. If he listens carefully he can hear a car. “This’d usually be the way to a waterfall but looks like we’ve had some trees fall. See how there’s that gap in the tree cover up ahead? If we climbed up there we’d find a couple of stumps. They don’t pull the roots, but if the park rangers spot a tree that’s going to fall in this area, they down it to make sure it doesn’t flatten any hikers.” 

“I thought they only did that for main trails?” Grand crouches, cleaning his hands quickly. The breaks within the tree cover makes Echo glow, the blue tones in their hair coming alive. 

“People have been hiking down here since the 70s. Probably earlier, but hey. You know what kind of shit they’d be in if there was a landslide or a tree collapsed on someone?” Echo is stretching, pulling at their legs and arms before setting their pack aside. “Stay here for a minute - I want to check something.” 

The leaning trees against the bank are old enough that their trunks are smooth, unmarked by branches. Echo climbs them anyway, disappearing behind their width. The lean makes it easy for them, all strong fingers and momentum. Grand watches, fingers tight on his camera. Echo’s hand grabs against a notch, a horn of bark. Grand marks the way their feet break against the trunk, the muscles in their shoulders catching shadow in the most pleasant way, their light jacket abandoned with their pack for the moment. 

“Yep! There’s a block up ahead.” They call down to him, sitting back on their haunches. Grand just stares at them for a moment, fussing a moment before he steps back, raising his camera slightly. “Can you do that again?” 

Echo laughs, and he can hear birds take flight deeper in the forest in response. It makes his chest feel strange, a feeling right beside worry, right beside delight. “I can show you something better. Get ready!” 

Grand barely has time to focus his camera before they stand, ponytail swaying as they let gravity take them, all but running down the tree. He tries to follow Echo as they run, the rock under him shifting with his movement. It doesn’t matter.

Echo picks up their pack again, jacket back in place as they come to stand behind him, warm hand leaving grit on his shoulder as they look through his photos together. “Did you get a good one?”  
He flicks through them slowly, most slightly off-center or just slightly out of focus - he tries not to delete as he goes, to pull the camera into his chest and not show Echo until he’s completely satisfied that there was a shred of decent photography somewhere in there. He tells himself it’s mostly for reference for bigger, greater artworks. 

He stills on one shot in particular - he can see just a hint of the smile on Echo’s face, mostly shadowed by the light behind them. They look almost as if they’re flying, pushing off from the tree. He can see hints of bright, brilliant green in the background instead of the blurred brown of other trees, the lichen scrawling over the trunk a soft relief. 

“I think… I think this is the one.” He breathes, and knows not to put too much love into it until he sees it in full resolution on his computer. He turns off the camera immediately. “You said there’s a block ahead?” 

Echo looks at him, surprise flickering over their face for a moment. “Oh! Uh, yeah. It’s not too bad, but it’s going to be a pain in the ass with the packs. We could still try it if you’re up for it?”  
Grand nods. He wants to see them climb it, wants to see that beautiful, flowing ease again. “I mean, how hard could it be?” 

It sucks. They reach the other side of the block, mud dripping off his pants, bits of bark sticking in his hair. His pack nearly got gouged by one of the sharper broken boughs, his hands tingling from how tightly he had gripped some of the logs. His camera, thankfully, is safe but it will be a long time before his shoes are fully dry again. Echo seems to be doing a bit better with a slap of mud across their cheek, a leaf sticking in their hair. There’s grit and dust, of course, but somehow their shoes are dry. It’s infuriating. 

It’s easy to be impressed by a waterfall, however. It’s easy to let the annoyances flow away in the great rush of it, easy to ignore the dirt coating him as he ducks around, trying to find the best angle. Echo watches him, content to lean against the tree their packs are resting under as Grand slides cautiously on damp rock. The heavy mist feels like bliss after their long trek, and he’s tempted to dunk his head into the waterfall itself just to see what it feels like. It would probably feel terrible. He joins Echo after a moment on the shore, gritty mud fostering life just outside of the fall’s reach. Echo passes him a water bottle from their stash, a bottle of their own swinging from their calloused fingers. 

“It’s about 3pm now. We’re making pretty good time, believe it or not. Do you want a break or are you good?” 

Grand shifts as he considers, stretching himself out now that they finally were resting on solid ground. “Yeah, small one.” 

The ground is hard beside Echo, uneven with roots and stone digging into his legs. He breathes smoke as he roots around in his bag, offering Echo one of the few apples he had brought, hoping it wasn’t too bruised. Echo takes it easily, giving it a little rub on their shirt before biting in. 

“I remember listening to a story about a kid who turned into a waterfall one time.” Grand says, dropping his vape to take a bite of his own apple. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Some introspective piece about what it’s like to grow up gay and unfamiliar with yourself in Nevada.” Another bite, the crisp flesh sweet between his teeth. “It was part of a gallery show. The primary artist there used a lot of water in her work - mostly photography, but she had a few films. I can’t remember the name of pieces or anything, but she used field recordings in one, paint in another. I think she tried to talk the gallery into flooding one of the rooms completely, but it never panned out.”

“Would they line the room in glass or plastic or something so it didn’t damage the floor?”

“Hmm… Maybe. I’d go with glass, or concrete with glass inserts. Have it suspended… Really play with the sense of gravity and water as a force.” He gestures, drawing the shape and relative scale of the glass inserts, already thinking about material costs and presentation. It would need more work. 

“I mean yeah, you could do that. But what would separate it from just a floating pool or fountain or whatever?” Echo tosses their apple core into the bush, dusting off their pants as they stand.

“Nothing, technically.” Grand follows them, barely paying attention as they begin to walk a solid, established path. The lines were too predictable, the towering trees beautiful but without special interest. “But art needs three things, right? Form, context, and emotion. So if we’re just focusing on form, it’s not going to be complete.”

“But form needs to reflect both of those things or else it’s not going to be accessible to everyone. Like, not everyone has years of dealing with art theory…” Never mind the time or money to head to the gallery whenever they pleased. 

“Yeah? And not everything is going to be understood by everyone. But a lot of modern stuff is just like… Like you can listen to the artist or a tour guide explain the story behind the work and that’s generally enough. It’s not like it’s totally inaccessible.” Grand fiddles with his pack, pulling out his phone. Good - still half charged. 

“Personally I think it would be cool if there was just an active pool right in the middle of a full gallery show. Just let some kids go wild in there.” Echo walks a few paces in front of him, as always. They’re looking for something, it seems, glancing at side trails and markers as they pass. 

“Oh, no, absolutely.” Grand laughs, trying to figure out a pattern to Echo’s attention. Man-made markers, obviously, but it looked liked Echo was mainly focusing on trees again. “Is there anything I should be keeping an eye out for?” 

“We’re looking for an area with a lot of pine. There’s a fairly established deer trail around here that should take us right to it. You’re still up for those mushrooms, right?” Echo tests an area, ducking through the bush. They hold it back, waiting for Grand to follow. 

“Come on, I want milk caps for dinner.”

“Hold on,” Grand starts, pulling a burr off his jeans. “I did not agree to that part of the trip.” 

“Great, more for me.” Echo shrugs, their pace slowing as they begin to search. “We’re looking specifically for ponderosa pines. You know them, right?” 

“Yeah, totally.” He lies, pulling his phone back out. It was fine to use a bit of power in the interest of getting 'dinner', wasn't it?


	4. Chapter 4

The glow of his cellphone in the low light of the underbrush seems harsh, misplaced. He lets it wash over his shoes as he peers at bugs crawling over breaking bark, the sound of hands brushing aside pine needles behind him. He thinks about the picture hanging beside the window in that old cafe, thinks about the lighting, the ridged texture of the hollow log those mushrooms sheltered in. He tries to match it. He finds nothing, just greys and browns and rotting lumps of branches bearing no fruit. He finds his legs are sore, the pine forest inspiring nothing. He looks to the tree line, thinks about every other guy with a forearm tattoo depicting a forest. 

He gives up looking, following Echo deeper into the woods whenever they move. They’re talking about humidity and growing conditions, and something about nettles, and something about cooking, but what Grand wants has nothing to do with any of that. He wants to go back to the feeling he had in the river. He swats the mosquito hovering by his ear. 

He really wants to find that mushroom and go. 

He starts to say something to Echo about heading back to the trail, about finding a bench or someplace with a cellular signal so he could check in with his sister when they call him over, a shock of white and red coming from the ground just before their feet.

“Weird…” He pulls out his camera, focusing on the waxy, slightly oblong white berries tipped with black.

“Yeah, right? You’ll die if you eat it.” Echo smiles, pulling out a notebook and pen. “You don’t see a lot of doll eyes out here - they like a more clay-heavy soil.” Their lettering is tight and quick - a degree, a position, the tilt of the land, the date, and weather.

“Cool.” He says because it is, in a way. “Why do you think it’s here?” 

“So I can use it to murder you in your sleep.” Echo shrugs, dusting off their pants as they stand, going back to their mushroom hunt.

“Right, great. That’s very cool of you, Echo. I really appreciate that.” Grand shifts his pack, following at a relaxed pace as Echo traces looping patterns through the forest. Eventually, he stops trying to keep up with them. He can still hear their footsteps through the quiet forest, so he sits himself on one of the more sturdy looking logs. A cool breeze rocks the towering tops of the pines, small shafts of light scattering on the forest floor. Below him, there are bugs and moss and ferns sprouting from a fallen giant. He wants to smoke.

Echo circles back to him in time, shrugging slightly before perking up. There’s no explanation as their hand, warm and solid, lands on Grand’s leg as he is shoved lightly out of the way, Echo ducking to uncover the little grey lumps poking out from the shadow of the log. Grand sinks down beside them after a moment, watching as Echo gently brushes off the depression in the cap, pulling a glove out of their pants pocket to gently lift the rim of the cap, exposing the vivid blue underside to Grand’s inquiring eye.

“Woah.” Grand breathes, knowing instantly that no matter how blue it was, it wouldn’t properly reveal itself on camera unless he completely changed the lighting conditions. 

“Ok, check the rest of the log. Do you want to take a picture of these before I bag them?” Grand nods, fiddling around as best as he can with his settings. The mushrooms come out pale, the colour of arctic ice. He changes the settings again, the blue showing it’s true indigo but details fading in the background. He tries a third time, and calls it good enough. Echo’s knife is quick once he calls it quits with that batch, showing him how the mushroom bleeds blue where they cut into it, the milky substance staining their glove. Grand takes a picture of that as well, first with his normal camera and then with his phone. He asks Echo to move slightly, so the light can get on it, says he’s going to send it to his sister once they’re back in cellular range. 

“And you said we can eat them?” Grand says, starting to poke around the rest of the log. Echo joins him, pointing out potential places by the slight raise in the carpet of needles and holes within the log.

“Yeah! As long as they’re not too buggy, they’re pretty mild. A little peppery.” Echo pulls a paper bag from their pack, setting the bleeding mushroom inside. “We’re going to need three or four good-sized mushrooms, along with some nettle. How do you feel about pasta tonight?” 

“...How?” Grand removes his head from inside the log, the fern he was photographing curling gently against the light. 

“I brought pasta. What, did you think you’d actually survive on just jerky and apples?” Echo says mildly, ducking down out of Grand’s line of sight to add another mushroom to the collection. 

“I have granola too…” Grand mumbles, skimming his hand over one of the slight lumps on the ground, a bit of grey poking from under the debris. He feels a slight give, cool flesh poking his hand. He nearly jumps out of his skin, a strange feeling in his chest as he sees grey-blue. 

He found one on his own. 

He checks, and checks again, blue milk staining his fingers as his nails scrape the delicate flesh accidentally. He calls Echo.

“Nice! That’s a perfect size too. Do you want to keep looking for a bit longer, or do you want to head out?” Echo smiles at him, rolling Grand’s mushroom between his fingers before adding it to the bag.

“I want to keep looking for a bit.” Grand’s mouth moves before he remembers that he’s foot-sore and tired from hiking all day. But Echo looks happy, hand on his shoulder as they tug him along to the remaining roots of the fallen tree. 

They find the last bunch at the same time, ten minutes later, by the foot of the opposing tree. It’s a cluster of three, Echo gently moving aside the larger ones to pluck the smallest, wiping their blue-coated knife on some stray leaves. Grand watches closely, notes how their tongue sticks between their teeth as they press slightly down on the earth, trying to get the cleanest cut. It’s interesting. They call it after another ten minutes, Echo leading them back to the trail. 

It’s another half an hour before they finally stop to make camp, Echo cutting nettle as they come across scattered bushes. Grand feels his shirt unstick itself from his back as he dumps his pack on the ground, sinking down loudly as Echo begins to set up. There’s a line strung between trees, a ring of rock abandoned by previous campers cleared. 

“How you holding up, big guy?” Echo asks him, nudging his muddy boot with their own. 

“There’s six days more of this?” Grand sighs, rolling himself up to sit properly. Echo's eyes are so bright in the low evening light.

“Yep. You gonna survive?”

“Sure. I think my legs are going to fall off by the end of the week, but it’s fine.” 

“Great, then you can get started on setting up the tents.” 

Grand groans, but does not protest further as he pulls at his bag. His small tent sets up easily, the light poles fitting neatly into their holds. The stakes warp slightly when he shoves them into the hard ground, his knees hurting as he bends and does it all again for Echo’s tent. They’re boiling water, ingredients laid out on a simple cloth beside them - the mushrooms get their own tin, thin sliced and bleeding as Echo stuffs handfuls of nettle into the pot. By the time Grand joins them, a herbal scent somewhere between chamomile and licorice but unlike either of them hangs in the air, the crackling of the cooking fire a welcome ambiance. 

He sketches, and the lines seem easy as Echo works. 

It’s maybe the best meal he’s had camping. Echo had worn gloves gathering the nettle, but there wasn't a hint of sting or grit on his tongue, the mild pepper of the mushrooms balanced well against the sharp cut of parmesan Echo had scraped over the bowl in twists. Night falls, and fireflies hover around Echo’s shoulders as they scrub the dishes clean with coarse grass in the river. Grand is tasked with pulling their packs up into the trees, away from bears and other hungry animals. The smell of smoke remains, warm as it sticks to his clothes.

Sleep lays itself over him the second he has himself in the soft confines of his sleeping bag, trees shivering and silver in the moonlight outside his tent door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's better than this just pals being buds eating some weird shit they got from the ground. Indigo milkcaps are really cool to look at, and nettle tastes great! Nettles can be found all throughout the states and much of Canada, and are often considered a marker of fertile soil.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey you ever accidentally sign up for a week long trip with your crush?


End file.
